


Roman's List

by romantichopelessly



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Angst, Crying, Diary/Journal, Other, Romangst, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26960920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romantichopelessly/pseuds/romantichopelessly
Summary: I took a single line from this latest Asides episode and turned it into romangst. I do not apologize for it."If it is a mistake, I'll add it to the list."
Comments: 10
Kudos: 107





	Roman's List

When Roman wrote, prose flowed from his mind like water from a tap. Steady most of the time and of questionable quality depending on the day, but flow it did. Verses came to Roman as easily as breathing. If one had occasional asthma, that was. Roman could pull out rhymes like so many dimes from his silver-lined pockets, even though his go-to metallic was gold.

Roman was a writer. Roman was a creative. 

As such, Roman’s room was filled to the brim with notebooks. Notebooks filled with scribbles and ideas, sketches and poetry that never saw the light of day and love letter after love letter after diary entry. Notebooks that were as empty and clean as the day that he acquired them. Primed and ready to use in whatever way the prince saw fit, if he ever found the perfect use for a cherry red journal with a golden leaf pattern winding the cover.

However, there was one notebook that was not like the others. This notebook--plain and black, with a bound leather spine and a white satin built in bookmark--spent most of its time in the small crevice on the back of the prince’s mirror. 

It was a difficult place to keep a journal, especially when Roman found something to put in said journal at least once a day, meaning that his poor innocent mirror was being moved far too often to excuse the elaborate hiding spot.

The journal contained a list. Roman, as a creative, was not one for making itemized lists. Really, that was more of Logan’s thing. However, this specific list had been ongoing for years now. If the notebook that the list filled was not imaginary, Roman would probably be on his third or fourth notebook.

Roman had started this list when Thomas was in his late highschool years. About the time that he was deciding what to do with his future, to be exact. The first entry was simple. A bullet point and a mistake. The first documented of many.

  * _I lost us the lead in the school play. Thomas has decided to major in chemistry._



It wasn’t much, at the time. Roman didn’t even truly remember what it was that made him write down what was then seen as a colossal failure on his part. One minute he had been disappointed by Thomas’s decision to give up on his acting dreams, and the next he was huddled on the floor of his room, his reflection staring back at him from an awkward angle in his mirror, his breath coming in short gasps and chastisements running through his mind on a loop. _Failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure_ \--

When Roman came back from his spiral, his bright red glitter gel pen was already in his hands, and the words were already scripting themselves across the page of the notebook he hadn’t remembered reaching for. It was only when the mistake was written down that Roman felt the weight--or at least a very small part of it--release from his chest.

And there was the first on the list of Roman’s mistakes. Written neatly for future reference, to be looked back upon so that he would never _ever_ fail Thomas in such a way again.

Of course, everyone knew that that was not the last time that Roman would let Thomas down.

The list grew slowly at first. Roman was still confident in his ability to be the perfect creativity for Thomas. He brought ideas whenever Thomas needed them. He encouraged Thomas’s passions, even though they were no longer a part of his career path. He pushed for Thomas to pursue his dreams in between engineering classes and organic chemistry papers, and for Thomas to pursue cute boys.

The only times the notebook was pulled out and Roman’s list grew longer was when the pursuit of dreams interfered a bit too much with Thomas’s work.

He never wanted to hurt Logan. Honest.

The notebook and the list was almost forgotten when Thomas finally gave up on chemical engineering and decided to become an actor. By the time Vine came around, Roman felt practically unbeatable. Sure, every once in a while he would do something that garnered the need of the notebook and its list, but more often than not, Roman was unstoppable. 

He considered getting rid of the list.

On July 15, 2017, Roman’s list of mistakes nearly doubled in size.

After Virgil had revealed his name and Roman had apologized for making the anxious nelly feel so unwelcome as a part of Thomas, everything suddenly became a lot more clear.

He had been making mistakes for so long without even knowing it.

Every harsh name that Roman had ever aimed at Virgil was added to the list. All the times that Roman mocked his very real worries and sent Thomas out unprepared into the world were added to the list. Each time that he shot Virgil a look that made the anxious side flinch away--as if _Roman_ were the villain, and goodness gracious Zeus above, if Virgil wasn’t the villain in those situations, perhaps _he_ was--were added to the list. All the times that Roman doubted Patton’s judgement about his “shadowling” were added to the list. Entire years of Roman’s life were added to the list, because hurting Virgil was hurting Thomas, because like it or not Virgil did not, in fact, set out to hurt Thomas, and how could Roman have been so _stupid_ to not realize that--

After that, Roman decided that he needed to be more cautious.

He needed to check himself. The list was kept for a reason. So that he could stop failing Thomas. He decided that he would be more open minded. He couldn’t chance hurting Thomas like he had with Virgil ever again.

So when Deceit revealed himself to Thomas, that was how Roman approached the situation.

Even with the list in mind, Roman still made mistakes. He got defensive around Deceit, modeling after Patton, and every night afterwards, Roman would add those names to the list. It was like Virgil all over again. Sure, it wasn’t obvious now that Deceit was another knight in shining armor for Thomas, but Roman had been wrong before. He had been wrong too many times to count now. He couldn’t take that chance again.

When the callback came up, even Roman’s list couldn’t advise him.

Deceit wanted to go to the callback. Patton was saying that that was wrong. Roman had never before made a mistake when agreeing with Patton. Patton was almost always right. He knew what was good for Thomas. On the other hand, shutting out Deceit was almost exactly like the previous mistakes that Roman had made in regards to Virgil.

And on the third pretend-it-doesn’t-exist hand, Roman _desperately_ wanted to go to the callback.

He wanted it more than he had wanted anything in quite a long time. And Roman was a selfish creature. Selfishness had appeared in his list on more than one occasion.

So Roman did what he thought was best--not what he wanted, no, never what he wanted, the stakes were too large to risk yet another failure against Thomas--and Roman listened to Patton. He sentenced Thomas to the wedding.

A mistake was not added to the list that night. He had finally done something right.

Then along came the day of the wedding, and Thomas was _hurting_. Roman didn’t quite know how--of course he didn’t, he was too stupid to figure it out--but he knew that this was his fault.

Patton tried to make light of it. Good, caring Patton tried to fix Roman’s mess, and ungrateful Roman _just kept messing it up_.

Everything tumbled downhill after that. Roman’s progress was Humpty-Dumpty, and his fall came in the form of aggressive overcorrection of his actions and a nervous laugh at an admittedly funny name.

And a nail in the coffin.

A confirmation that this failure was the final nail in the coffin.

_“I thought I was your hero?”_

_A shake of a head._

Roman sunk out to his room and shoved his mirror off of his wall without a thought to the fragile glass it was made of. He pulled out the notebook with shaking fingers and grabbed a pen off his desk with a complete lack of care.

  * _CHOOSING THE WEDDING._
  * _Listening to ~~Dec~~ Janus_
  * _Not listening to Janus_
  * _Skipping Logan_
  * _Not watching out for Thomas_
  * _Laughing at his name_



Item after item was added to the list. The pages of the notebook crumpled under his careless hand as he gripped the pages with an intensity that he didn’t even know how to feel. The pages were wet, his tears hitting the pages and drying in rough patches on the paper. 

He didn’t even know himself what the real mistakes were. He wrote them all down for good measure. 

By the time that Roman ran out of energy, the list was almost incomprehensible. Words scratched out and doubled over, not following the lines of the notebook and in atrocious handwriting. 

But it would have to do. Because Roman couldn’t afford any more mistakes. This list could not afford to get any longer than it already was. He couldn’t fail Thomas this catastrophically ever again.


End file.
